In a normal childbirth, women can safely give birth without medical interventions (including, but not limited to, epidurals, caesarian sections, vacuum extraction, and forceps). In abnormal childbirth, some form of medical intervention is required to ensure the safety of the patient and her fetus from various childbirth complications. Also, even the normal childbirth can require some form of artificial assistance to prevent such childbirth complications.
Accordingly, various physical conditions of the patient (e.g., mother) and her fetus are constantly monitored so that the obstetrician can act appropriately based on his experience and knowledge.
Childbirth process has been modernized with various medical treatment techniques and advanced equipment, thereby significantly reducing the medical accidents during childbirths. Even in the modern medical setting with advanced equipment and medical techniques, however, childbirth related medical accidents (e.g., delayed or inappropriate medical treatment) by the decision of inexperienced or biased obstetrician handling the circumstances. That is, some obstetricians tend to prefer a certain way of childbirth method or situation handling protocol. Not only are the patients and their fetuses at risk, but in some cases, the obstetricians are blamed for taking certain course of action during the childbirth and held responsible for the outcome.
There are three problems in the conventional childbirth control method. First, evaluating the progress of labor is a difficult task for a doctor since a lot of information, such as values for the dilation, the effacement, the contraction rate and the position of fetus, must be considered. These values vary by the patients and also fluctuate throughout the childbirth process.
Second, since the childbirth is successively performed in real-time, it is difficult to obtain confirmation from the legal guardian or the patient's family member, or to seek assist from with other medical service provider (e.g., obstetrician or doctors specializing in any other fields) during the childbirth to properly diagnose and treat the patient.
Lastly, there is currently no clinical device that can provide objectively assessed or sufficiently substantiated medical information for predicting or assessing the progress of the childbirth, and provide viable medical treatments or alternative childbirth methods to the obstetrician, in response to sudden changes in the patient's and/or fetuses physical condition. Lack of such device also makes it very difficult to validate the doctor's decision during the childbirth.
Moreover, it is necessary to make a means for providing standardized physical information of patients and fetuses at different stages of childbirth, which can serve as a reference tool for obstetricians.
In order to implement the objective and scientific childbirth management system, the collaborating medical treatment with other obstetrician is also desired. Accordingly, instruments using an internet communication network capable of managing the childbirth according to a consistent childbirth protocol and policy on various definitions of the childbirth and displaying the conditions of the progress of the childbirth are required. Also, it is necessary for the obstetrician to communicate with the patient, the patient's guardians (e.g., family members), and the collaborating obstetrician regarding the progress of childbirth in real time during the labor.